Many individual and U.S. government waste sites across the nation exhibit radionuclide contamination in excess of established limits. It is a significant technological challenge to characterize and quantify contaminants in these sites in a rapid and efficient manner so as to establish remedial protocols. Traditional methods for quantitative determination of radionuclides include radiation measuring techniques, various spectroscopic determinations, including scintillation counting and ion chromatography. Many methods require preconcentration of radionuclides involving packed sorbents in glass or plastic columns. Particulate sorbents packed in columns are prone to plugging, low flow rates, and channeling as fluids pass through.
Sorptive particulates enmeshed in nonwoven fibrous webs have been disclosed for quantitative measurement of radioactivity by direct measurement of radionuclides trapped in the web (WO 96/14931).
Scintillation counting of radiation from radionuclides has been disclosed by D. Yang, "Scintillations", Radioactivity & Radiochemistry, 4(2) (1993) pp 8-13, by J. H. Harley et al., "Beta Scintillation Counting With Thin Plastic Phosphors", Nucleonics, (January 1962) pp 59-61, and by A. J. Schilk et al. in "Real-time, in situ Detection of .sup.90 Sr and .sup.238 U in Soils via Scintillating-Fiber-Sensor Technology", Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, A 353 (1994) pp 477-481. Use of solid scintillators in conjunction with glass fiber filters and coated plastic caps has been disclosed by E. F. Hawkins and R. Steiner, "Solid Scintillation with Xtalscint.RTM.," Radioactivity and Radiochemistry, 3 (1992) pp. 12-19. There is no disclosure to extraction and quantitation of radionuclides in a unitary method.